The M2. The car highlights your mistakes like no other. Heavy, weight biased to the front, no downforce. Compared to a GT3 and even a GT4 it barely feels like a race car offering hardly any grip. Yet, its a good teacher. Especially on Paul Ricard you will need to trail brake precisely and consistently every lap. Once you overwhelm the ABS it won't return to you. It's all on the driver.

The setup then leaves little options really. Try to get rid of the drag, try to get it to rotate without losing traction. Yes, despite the low power it still just about has too much so you are able to slide if the TC is off.

Shifting points remind of the Nissan GT3 or your regular Diesel engine. You are often using a way higher gear than you expect. Get comfortable with a hard to hear engine.

All this makes this car a great training ground for your driving style. Trailing the brake deep and carefully, applying the throttle quickly, but precisely, steering as much as needed and as little as possible to save the tires and never get into the understeer that will not end once it has started.

Getting the rear around you is the major challenge: Trailing just so that the front is not overloaded, throttle just so that the rear only mildly comes around, steering quickly to upset the rear but little enough to stay within the limits of the front. Its a narrow path. If you can drive this car for several laps on the same line, you will gain consistency across the board. 

Most important techniques

• low level deep trailing
• potentially slight brake taps while on power to keep the nose pointed
• throttle quickly in the right moment to get the turbo going, but ready to back off ever so slightly to not spin up the rears
• small but fast steering inputs to get the rear lose

Setup changes

For the race potentially change brake ducts, add fuel. No other changes required. One hour on Paul Ricard only needs 62l.

Times
Race lap times should be roughly 6-7 tenths slower at the beginning than Q. So Low 2:10s in 23c. Then the lap times drop quickly by half a second, then 1.5s about 12 laps into the stint and about 2-2.5s slower at the end of the stint in hotter conditions with blistering.